(4/2/05) grocery checkout touchscreen

(Entered in paper journal at 10:15 AM at Starbucks on 114th Street and Broadway in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I headed for the self-checkout lines in a grocery store that was lit dimly, like a large warehouse. I had given a great deal of attention to what I had been shopping for, though I don't remember anymore what it all was.

A few people stood in line in front of me, or, rather, we all gathered in line in close time so that I was last in line, but arrived in line maybe a fraction of a second after the first in line. But everybody parted when they realized I stood behind them, as if obliged to let me go by simple, polite repayment for having jostled ahead of me.

The front guy was kind of wiry, small, with a head of loosely curled, black hair. I felt bad for going ahead of everybody. The checkout stands looked like they were set crooked or like they were set in an obscure corner, like where a customer service booth or a pharmacy booth might be.

I went to a stand beside a stand where a lady was checking out items. I only had one carton, one quart, of milk I sat it down on the scanner and then lifted it up and held it in my left hand.

A nine-squared menu appeared on the touchscreen. It led to another nine-squared menu which led to the last menu I remember, which, though still in the nine-square format, only had the first five squares as options, i.e.

as opposed to

I don't remember the first two menus, except that each option-button had a picture on its top half and an item name on its bottom half, i.e.

Each screen I reached made me more and more worried that I was messing up my item choice and that I would end up having to pay more money than I actually had. Each time I touched the screen I felt as giddy as I would on a high-wire. The words were so misleading, and the pictures were only obtuse indicators of the product.

In the last screen there were pictures of the milk carton, something like the Tuscan milk carton illustrations. I thought the first button's picture was of my milk. But I read the word "skim" below the picture. I knew that wasn't it. There were pictures of old, unpainted, wooden barns and fields of tall, green grass. Then there was another picture, of a milk carton. One of the buttons' words was something like "magnesium."

I was about to choose the second milk carton button, but the word was "testicular." I stood there for a second, trying to figure out what the hell kind of milk I had, and whether I had made a mistake in one of the first two screens.